


The Ties that Bind

by FromAnonymousToZ



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Adelaide's Scissors, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, But I flipped off the concept again apparently, But you can be your own person without a 'soulmate', Featuring An Uncreative Title, For the record I've never even heard the song, I didn't acknowledge it very much in this fic, I just can't seem to write them without bastardizing them, I promise I actually like soulmate aus, M/M, Red String of Fate, Romance, Soulmates, The Artifacts come into play, You can be your own person without romantic attraction, choosing your own soulmate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28171905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FromAnonymousToZ/pseuds/FromAnonymousToZ
Summary: Mortals have soulmates.Enoch has a soulmate.And apparently, so does the Beast.
Relationships: The Beast/Enoch (Over the Garden Wall)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	The Ties that Bind

Mortals have soulmates. 

They have their special red strings, bound about their fingers and wrists, that lead them to their intended. 

It was an incredibly romantic notion, Enoch thought. 

The fact that mortals would spend their whole lives chasing away their youth and following their strings searching for the one who would make them whole, why, a poet couldn’t think of something better. 

Enoch was incredibly familiar with the concept. So many of his dead had died searching, with grief so deep in their marrow it could take weeks for his contentment to ease their wanderlust. 

Some died with red strings tangled in their bones, looking as if the gore of flesh had not yet submitted to the worms; others died holding their strings clasped close against their chests. So romantic, to be tangled in a symbol of love (romantic or otherwise), even as flesh gave way to chalk-white bones, to be dripping with crimson tying you to another as blood binds one to life. 

Positively shameless was what it was.

With the fact that the strings got so tangled and it being so hard to follow them to the end, searching for one’s soulmate was usually not a fruitful endeavor. It left so many souls paired incorrectly or filled with sorrow and left more dead. 

Romantic, yes, but also incredibly foolish.

Enoch himself has a red string, though he’s never felt any inclination to leave his people to follow it. 

It bound itself to him, finding its way to his various skins, stretching out, tempting and tauntingly, away from Pottsfeild and into the winter wilds.

What could a soulmate possibly offer him that he does not already have?

Soulmates were only a promise of someone who would ‘complete’ you. Soulmates were friends, significant others, old flames, coworkers. Really there was no reason a soulmate was anything other than a companion. 

Plenty of soulmates didn't even seem to get on that well. 

Enoch has no need for companionship, he has his town and his people, and he has the Beast. 

The Beast doesn't have a soulmate string around his wrist. 

Perhaps that’s part of the reason Enoch has no desire to follow his string because when he came to the end of it, it would not be wrapped around the Beast's wrist. 

But nevertheless, Enoch has no desire to follow his string, and for that matter, neither do his people.

Their wanderlust is sated by his presence, and their presence sates his need for company. 

* * *

It starts, as most things between them do, with a conversation under the moonlight. 

Enoch reclines against the fence as he watches the Beast pace back and forth, working himself into a fury about his most recent lantern bearer’s treachery. 

Beast was so lovely, especially when he was angry. 

Enoch’s eyes traced the Beast’s shadows, his long legs, and broad antlers. Idly he thinks of wrapping his ribbons around the Beast wooded form to hold him and ease that anger. Another angrier, more bloodthirsty part of him wants to offer to throttle his most recent lantern bearer for their transgressions.

Enoch watches those lovely eyes as red and yellow pool at the surface only to be choked out by green as violet dances with blue at the fringes, slowly mixing and melting into rings of his eyes.

Then all at once, the Beast halts his pacing, attention turned towards Enoch radiating curiosity, and Enoch realizes he doesn't know what Beast just asked of him. 

“What was that, Hope Eater?” 

“Why don't you take it off?” 

“Take what off, dear?” 

“Your string.” The Beast gestures vaguely at the length of red string tied around the catskin’s neck and leading off into the woods. 

“Take it off? What are you talking about, Cricket?”

“Why don't you untie it?” 

Enoch gives a soft laugh. 

“I can not, neighbor. I know you do not have one, Voice of the Night, but surely you didn't think mortals can remove it?” 

The Beast hums softly. 

“I do have one.” He says after a long moment of silence. 

Enoch’s head snaps over to catch the Beast in his gaze.

“Pardon?” 

“I removed it.” 

He… removed it?

“How?” Enoch asks curiously. 

“I untied it.”

In the silence, Enoch is sure he must be giving off every possible reaction in his smell as he flickers through emotion, different fragments of him fighting to figure out how he as a greater whole should feel. 

He’s torn between anger and relief and curiosity. Joy gives way to grief, knowing the Beast may have a soulmate who isn't him out there before rapidly cresting into joy once more. A flash of anger at having been played the fool briefly sluices through his being before a wave of curiosity and numbness floods him. 

The Beast is shifting uncomfortably in the silence, and Enoch can hear his shallow, sniffing breaths as his neighbor attempts to crack the scents radiating off Enoch.

Finally, Enoch speaks into the silence. 

“You used to have one?” His voice sounds broken and hollow even to him. He sounds defeated. 

“I still have it.” The Beast’s voice is soft and cautious as if the winter warden is trying to figure out what exactly triggered the sudden wave of smell. His statement is offered up tentatively as a hesitant comfort. 

Enoch feels relief and joy flood his being. 

He must be dreadfully obvious to the Beast, but he finds he can’t bring himself to care enough to restrain it. 

“Where is it?” He perhaps sounds too eager, too hopeful. 

The Beast stares up at him curiously, eyes rolling with color, head tilted slightly. 

All at once, the winter warden seems to come to some sort of conclusion and waves idly with one clawed hand. 

“It’s tied to the lantern.” 

That brings a wash of confusion. 

“That is strange, neighbor. I do not recall seeing it the last time you left the lantern in my care.” 

The Beast makes a movement with his shoulders that is decidedly shrug-like. 

“It is not always tied to the lantern.” The air of disinterest in the Beast’s voice veils something deeper. Enoch does not push it. 

“Do tell, Hope Eater, why have you removed your string from your person? I personally cannot see the worth of such a thing.” 

That draws a cruel chuckle from the Beast. 

“Oh, yes, that. Mortals get such strange ideas about any creature with a string. They seem to think because I have a string that I’ll be sympathetic to their plight. That simply because it is within my ability to complete another, I simply cannot be capable of taking a life or taking away the other half of a soul.” He shakes his head as if trying to clear his head of the twisted humor of it. “It is better to let them think I am nothing more than a monster, unloving, and unlovable. They beg less.”

That seems… reasonable.

“Please pardon my curiosity, neighbor, but why is your string tied to the lantern if it is not usually tied there?”

“The man believes he is carrying the soul of his soulmate. I used my string and an illusion to give the impression the string is connected to his own.”

Enoch chuckles at that. 

“What is, so mirth inducing, Harvest Lord?” The winter warden asks curiously. 

“Most creatures view strings as sacred things, and you use yours so casually. You use it as...” He waves a strip of fabric idly of the nearby maypole skin as he searches for the word. “Window dressing in your con.” 

The winter warden is silent for a long moment, evidently not finding the thought as humorous as Enoch. 

When he speaks again, Enoch is caught off guard. 

“And you, Enoch?” 

Enoch blinks blankly at him with the catskin and stares at him with the maypole.

The Beast doesn't use his name casually. 

“Pardon me, neighbor. I’m not sure what you’re referring to.”

“Your string. If most creatures view it as sacred and I view it as simply a tool, what do you view it as?”

Enoch is rather taken aback. He drops the maypole skin just to ensure he doesn't rip his ribbons to tatters while considering his answer and settles fully into the catskin. 

He tries to drown out his uncertainty and conflicted scent with pure plenty. He’s not so sure he’s doing a good job of it. 

Beast’s eyes are practically glowing violet and yellow.

When Enoch at last speaks, his words are carefully measured. 

“I suppose…” He starts and then dithers. “I suppose I understand the general concept and the worth that is placed on them by other beings. I’ve never felt a particularly strong inclination to follow mine, nor do I particularly care what is at the other end. Still, I do not think I would treat it quite as…” He pauses, trying to find a way to phrase it delicately without showing his hand. 

“Don’t mince your words on my account, Harvest Lord.” The Beast leers, and if Enoch didn't know better, he would say the Beast’s posture was something positively predatory. 

“As... callously as you treat yours.” He finishes eventually and winces at the sound of the words.

“And if you found the being on the other end?”

The catskin swallows thickly. 

Enoch wants to blame it on the catskin, but he knows he’s responsible. 

“I suppose that would depend entirely on what they are.” The Beast inches forward, eyes such a muddle of color Enoch can't make heads or tails of it. 

“How so, Thicket Cat?” 

“Well,” Enoch starts and then abruptly stops himself. 

He’s supposed to be better at this. 

He’s supposed to be the ever-fickle autumn lord, the alliance builder, the death lord with only his town’s best interest in mind. 

He’s supposed to be secretive and deflective, never showing his motives or true alliances. 

That’s how you protect yourself in this game of back and forth politics, that’s how you thrive, that’s how you stay  _ alive _ .

Being transparent, letting too much show, tipping your hand without a trick up your sleeve, that’s how one gets killed, that's how his town ends up annexed into something else. 

He narrows his eyes at the Beast warily. 

“What’s your aim, Winter Warden?” 

The warden scoffs. 

“If I wanted to use such a thing against you, I wouldn't ask you so directly. I could just as easily get the answer less honestly.” 

It’s not a straight answer, and frankly, Enoch is impressed with the Beast’s redirection. 

He has a point, though.

Enoch relents.

“If they were a mortal, say one of my Pottsfeilders, I suppose I would continue on as I had. It’s not appropriate, power imbalances, and such.” 

The Beast is practically vibrating now. 

“And if they were not?” He leans forward, shoulders hitched. “If they were like you?” 

Enoch pauses and cocks the maypole’s head to observe the Beast better. 

“Well, I suppose I might look into forming a deeper companionship with them.”

The Beast growls, frustrated. 

Ah, he’s looking for a specific answer. 

Enoch wonders how long he can dance around asking the question before his curiosity wins out, and the Beast gives in, asking his question honestly.

The Beast stares at him, claws twitching.

Evidently not long.

“Would you…” The Beast trails off, but his luminous eyes remain fixed upon Enoch. 

Enoch is reasonably sure he knows what the Beast wants to ask. 

Would Enoch grow to adore them as he adored the Beast?

“No.” He breathes out his answer to the Beast’s half voiced question, and the Beast’s head snaps down at the catskin. “I have you, dear. I do not need nor want nor wish for another companion like you.”

He’s said it now, and it hangs between them like an omission. 

It's not as if they didn't know it. 

But now he’s said it. 

Or rather as close to it as either of them is going to get. 

It’s a dangerous thing to admit. Enoch doesn't want to hear the Beast say it back to him, and not just because he worries it will be a lie when it falls from his neighbor’s mouth. 

So long as only one of them says it, only one of them is in danger.

The Beast hums contentedly. 

“Good.” He says, at last, a note of finality in his voice.

And Enoch thinks that is the end of it, and he busies himself with tangling his ribbons as much as he can in the Beast’s antlers.

* * *

Beast is sitting in the loft of his barn. 

Enoch knows this. He can feel it in his web, but he also knows that the Beast has something else with him. Something powerful. 

It's something so laced with magic it distorts the fabric of Enoch’s carefully crafted realm. Enoch can practically taste the magic lingering around the Beast. 

Enoch would normally leap at the opportunity to evade talks of fund allocation if it meant he could spend the afternoon wrapped around the Beast. It's not that the talks were dreadfully dry. It’s merely that he much prefers spending time tangled around the Beast.

Enoch normally wouldn't procrastinate knowing the Beast was waiting for him, but the unknown source of power makes him anxious, and that's how he finds himself making plans for a new silo until late into the evening. 

He’s fretting, and he’s not doing well to hide it. 

His citizens have begun to share knowing glances and huff at his distractedness fondly. 

After three hours of planning the same 4 feet of the silo over and over, they cut him loose. 

Mr. Bitters rather forcefully insists he take a break and head back to his barn, saying rather bluntly he’s no help when he’s distracted. Miss Clara hushes him for his bluntness and turns to Enoch, giving him a knowing tilt of the head. 

“Go on now, dear, don’t keep Mr. Hope waiting.”

He sighs and wonders when he became so transparent but wishes them well with a wave of his ribbons and ducks into the night. 

He takes a somewhat meandering path back to his barn, trying to ignore the fact he’s stalling. 

He finds himself observing the fields for longer than is strictly necessary and, with a huff and impatient flick of his ribbons, makes his way to his barn. 

He lingers at the door, staring at it for a moment, then forces his ribbons to open it.

When he opens the barn doors, ducking in through them, the Beast is not lurking waiting for him. 

The Beast is lounging.

It sends Enoch’s worries ablaze as his tendrils begin to tear each other apart. The Beast’s theatrics only ever lead up to one thing, a trap. The Beast was only ever blunt with Enoch, forward-facing without ever dancing around anything except his own feelings. 

But now he’s laying in the rafters as if he’s about to ask Enoch to paint him like a french girl. One leg bowed, an arm draped over his knee, his chin resting on one elegant hand.

“Enoch.” He purrs in a way that sounds so insufferably pleased with himself Enoch nearly lurches away and drops the skin. 

He doesn't know what Beast is planning. 

He’s not sure he wants to know. 

All he knows is that one of The Relics is in his barn on the Beast’s person. 

He doesn't even know which one it is. From the taste of it in his web, it feels like one of the Blades, but he’s not certain. 

Is this it? 

Is this the day their fragile alliance collapses and drags  _ all _ of them into war? 

Is this the day the Beast turns on him, the companionship between them forfeit, and the blossoming thing one might dare to call love between them turned against him? 

Enoch was there when The Relics were made.

He knew the damage they could do if turned upon him by knowing hands. 

By the Beast’s hands.

Was this the day the Sword was turned upon him? The day the Dagger found its way to his metaphorical heart?

The parts of him beneath the earth lurched, sickened by the idea. 

Even the warring parts of him, those that called for destruction and violence and blood, mourned.

He knows that their alliance cannot last forever, this time of peace must eventually fade, and they must be plunged back into bloodshed. They are diametrically opposed. They are not meant to coexist together indefinitely. They are life and death and hunger and fulfillment and preservation and rot at each other's throats, ever trying to consume the other. 

Enoch loves the Beast. 

There’s no way to talk around it or ignore it when faced with reality. 

Even if the Beast doesn't succeed in killing him, even if Enoch survives the other attempts that will surely be made on him, even if he survives the war, even if he wins the war and comes out as the last one in this political ballad, he will surely die. 

If not of his physical and metaphysical wounds, then surly of his broken heart. 

He’s heard of mortals dying of broken hearts. 

He didn't think it would be his fate. 

He didn't think it would be the Beast who would be the one to make the first attempt.

He didn’t think the Beast would turn on him. 

And yet here he was, in his barn, cowering as he tried to put on an indifferent facade, as he knowingly walks into a trap. 

“Yes, Hope Eater?” He asks, trying to keep up pleasantries. 

One of the Beast’s hands disappeared under the winter spirit’s furs. His eyes were flashing blue, and Enoch writhes in the agony of suspense. He was enjoying watching Enoch squirm. 

Enoch wants to snap at him to hurry up, but he holds his tongue. 

Slowly, the Beast’s hand emerges, and gold glints upon his fingers. 

At last, he withdraws the whole of it from his furs. 

It’s the Scissors, gold and shaped like a bird. 

It’s certainly not the weapon Enoch would have picked to take on a being his size. 

Perhaps the Beast wants to savor it, to cut him into trillions of tiny pieces. Perhaps he would enjoy the slow work of dismantling Enoch in small precise cuts rather than the quick slashing of a blade. 

Perhaps he simply wants Enoch to suffer as his being is cut apart in a slow, grueling fashion. 

Enoch isn't sure he’ll have the heart to make him stop if he can fight at all. 

“Well?” The Beast asks and draws Enoch back into reality and out of the gory realm of his mind. 

Enoch takes in a moment to properly look at the Beast. 

The set of his shoulders, the twist of his head, the insufferably pleased tone, the blue curling in the fringes of his eyes, the way the Beast was vibrating with excitement. 

Enoch lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. 

The Beast isn't here to kill him. 

Enoch isn't sure what the Beast is here for, but if it was to kill him, he would not be practically bouncing on his heels, waiting for approval like an overzealous puppy. Enoch makes a note not to allow that comparison anywhere near his mouth. He doubts the Beast would find it as quaint as he.

Enoch tries to keep his shakiness out of his tone. 

“I’m sorry, dear. I’m not sure I follow.”

“Your string.” The Beast tilts his head. He nods towards where it trails from Enoch’s ribbons. “Since you seem to place weight upon it, and you and I are…” The Beast trails off. 

“Companions.” Enoch finishes in, and the Beast nods. 

They’re a lot more than that. 

They just can't seem to bring themselves to say it. 

They don't need to say it. 

“I’ll cut mine and tie it to yours.”

All at once, the dread that had been clinging to him melted away, replaced by a sudden giddiness. 

The Beast twirls the golden scissors on one dark claw.

They cast a gilded ark like the sun on a new day dawning, fluttering like the bird they are shaped after and fall still in his claws once more.

“Well?” He asks, but there’s a nervousness in the depths of his voice, a tightness in his shoulders that tells Enoch that the Beast is wondering if perhaps he read their arrangement incorrectly. 

The scissors gleam. 

“Alright,” Enoch murmurs a little stupidly. He must be going mad. There's no other explanation for the things the Beast just said. 

He stares at the Beast for a moment, ribbons still, and the Beast stares up at him, eyes dancing with blue. 

Eventually, Enoch shifts awkwardly. 

“How would you like to do this, dear?” He asks a note of excitement rising in his voice.

The Beast cocks his head, considering for a moment, then beckons Enoch over to the loft with a movement of his claws. 

Enoch ghosts forward, ribbons tangling in the rafters as he shifts the maypole to rest next to the Beast, who practically drags the maypole into his lap. 

The Beast sifts through Enoch’s ribbons, claws carding through strips of fabric. At last, he plucks out a red thread, trailing from the maypole’s head down out of the barn.

The Beast holds Enoch’s string gently in between his claws, holding it reverently. 

With a twirl of his claws, he wraps the red string around one claw easily.

Slowly he weaves the string between his pointer-claw and thumb, easily looping it and pulling it taught. 

The scissors gleam in his other hand. 

The Beast moves as if through molasses, dragging out every second as if it is something precious to be savored. 

Maybe it is, but it has Enoch in a tizzy worrying that the Beast is having second thoughts. 

The snip is a soft sound, but it rings loud as a clap of thunder through the silent barn. 

Enoch expects to feel something. As if a limb or extension of his being had suddenly been cut off or suppressed. He expects the agony of his soul splitting or a sudden lightness as if a burden had been lifted from him all at once. 

Instead, he doesn't feel anything. 

He stares at the end of the thread, still held in the Beast’s claws. 

It dangles limply. Enoch doesn't know what he expected. It’s not as if the thing was going to come to life like a snake and bite them. 

Enoch finds himself oddly captivated by it. 

Red strings usually don't end unless their end is in a knot around someone’s finger or tressed about their wrist. 

Then, the Beast moves the string to hold it in his mouth as he turns to address his own string. 

Enoch shudders at the image, red trailing out from shadow and binding to his own form. 

The Beast casts a curious glance at him before returning his attention back to his own string. 

“A bit of an unconventional use for the Scissors.” He mutters, and the Beast hums a melodic sound in response. 

The Beast pays significantly less fanfare to his own string, and before the catskin could have blinked, the string is cut. 

The Beast takes the two threads in hand and carefully begins to tie them together. 

Enoch does not know much in the way of knots, but by the amount of time the Beast is spending folding their strings into little loops and pulling the thread through, it must be a very complicated one. He ties it tightly so that no amount of tugging will lead to their strings becoming separated, but there is such reverence and ceremony in how he does it.

Enoch finds himself reminded of the string braiding that marks so many weddings.

Enoch stares at the knot in the two strings and cant help the giddiness rising in him.

They sit there, the Beast cradling his lantern and the place where their strings meet, claws fluttering over the neat knot. 

“Do you have a preference for where I wear this, Harvest Lord?” The Beast asks at last as his claws dance across the place where his string was tied around the dark lantern’s handle.

“Oh, I wouldn't want to interfere with your hunting, neighbor.” Enoch croons as his ribbons wriggle under the Beast’s furs. 

The Beast hums appreciatively and waves one clawed hand errantly. 

“I can simply replace the string with illusions, regardless, we are now bound, it is only fair you have some say in how I wear our string.” Enoch quivers with the casual way the Beast says our. Enoch doesn't believe he has ever heard the Beast refer to anything with joint ownership. 

It's positively intoxicating.

“Well, if you’re certain, neighbor,” The Beast’s eyes slant upward at that, blazing with suspicion. “I wouldn't mind if you tied it on one of these” His ribbons caress the Beast’s antlers.

The Beast’s head swings up and fixes his luminous blue eyes on him. 

Enoch doesn't think he’s seen this much blue in those eyes since Enoch had sent a set of humans on a hunting party into the woods with the promise that he had it on good authority that the warden of the woods would be pleased to see them.

Without ever breaking his eye contact with Enoch, the Beast unties his string from the lantern and offers it up silently before him.

Enoch wraps a ribbon around it.

The bow he ties is a little sloppy, with two large loops and one end hanging loosely; ribbons just aren't quite the best tools for tying knots. Oh, but looking at it fills him with such a possessive pride. He finishes off the bow with a flourish, and one of the Beast’s claws reaches up to tighten one of the loose ends. 

Enoch is so enraptured with the Beast he almost doesn’t spare a thought to the two neglected threads laying on the floor of the barn. 

One of the Beast’s hands gently pets the maypole, and Enoch purrs. 

Idly, he lifts the two loose ends. 

“What do you suggest we do with those, neighbor?” Enoch asks, and the Beast considers for a moment.

At last, the Beast crooks a claw, and Enoch obediently deposits them in the Beast’s hand.

The Winter Warden’s hand leaves the maypole to attend to the two threads; neatly, he pulls them into a tight bow.

“Well, that’s certainly one way to tie off loose ends.” Enoch chuckles, and the Beast levels him with a truly unimpressed stare and bats the maypole’s head. 

The dull thunk is punctuated by Enoch’s laughter.

The crimson line, newly bound, falls to the floor of the barn, disregarded.

**Author's Note:**

> Did they tie two unwitting souls together? Did they just tie a red thread in a circle? Who knows?


End file.
